Stephen Young

Washington representative and senior analyst

Mr. Young has an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University. He served as a fellow in the Bureau of Human Rights at the State Department, as Senior Information Specialist at ACCESS: A Security Information Service, as Co-Legislative Director of 20/20 Vision, as Senior Analyst at the British American Security Information Council, and as Deputy Director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a national alliance of 17 major nuclear disarmament organizations. He joined UCS in 2001.
Areas of expertise: U.S. nuclear weapons policy, nuclear terrorism, ballistic missile defense, arms control and international security, issue advocacy

Stephen's Latest Posts

On Tuesday, May 23, the Trump administration released its Fiscal Year 2018 (FY2018) budget request. I am doing a three-part analysis of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget. That agency, a part of the Department of Energy, is responsible for developing and maintaining US nuclear weapons. Previously we focused on The Good and The Bad, and today we have The Ugly. Read more >

On Tuesday, May 23, the Trump administration released its Fiscal Year 2018 (FY2018) budget request. I am doing a three-part analysis of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget. That agency, a part of the Department of Energy, is responsible for developing and maintaining US nuclear weapons. Yesterday we focused on The Good, today we have The Bad, and The Ugly is still to come.

On Tuesday, May 23, the Trump administration released its Fiscal Year 2018 (FY2018) budget request. In an overall federal budget where many, many programs faced severe budget cuts, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is on the receiving end of a proposed 11 percent budget increase (at least by the Trump administration’s accounting – more on that in a following post). Read more >

U.S. military leaders continue to strongly support New START, the arms control treaty between the United States and Russia that limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed, long-range nuclear weapons by 2018.

The problem is that President Donald Trump is apparently unwilling to listen to their sage advice. Read more >

The MOX program has been staggering along for years, struggling for survival. Today’s news, that Russia is suspending the joint U.S.-Russian agreement to dispose of excess plutonium, should be the final blow that finishes this risky boondoggle off. It removes the sole remaining justification for the program, which was that only if the United States pursued MOX would Russia dispose of its plutonium. Read more >